


Let's Pretend

by bronzeriver



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Compliant, Civilian Perspective, Disabled Character, F/M, Insomnia, Post-Battle of New York (Marvel), mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 17:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20970080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bronzeriver/pseuds/bronzeriver
Summary: Tony is always saying that Steve should hurry up and get a girl, but pretending to be husband to a complete stranger at 3am in the emergency room is probably not what he had in mind.orStruggling with his freshly-thawed identity in a post-Battle of New York 2012, Steve has a conversation with a stranger.





	1. Chapter 1

It was almost two in the morning and Steve couldn’t sleep. This wasn’t a new development in his already quite complicated life, he often found himself staring at the ceiling in the early hours of the morning. Rolling over to face his alarm clock, he sighed.

Try as he might, sleep would not come to him tonight.

He left his apartment in Tony’s building and descended to the main lobby. It was strange being around at this time, though he knew he wouldn’t be the only one awake. Truly, he thought, he was one of the only one of the tower’s inhabitants that tried to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Tony was up all hours working on God knows what, Bruce often working alongside him, Thor had rediscovered his Asgardian fame and could be found at a dive bar a couple of streets away, drinking the old regulars under the table until the early hours of the morning. Nat and Clint came and went on a regular basis, though for different reasons. Nat was frequently out of the country on S.H.I.E.L.D business, the subject of which she rarely discussed, and Clint spent the majority of his time with his family in Missouri, though he told Steve to keep that information to himself as the others didn’t know that he was even married.

Not that Steve had anyone to tell.

He could have gone to any of the Avengers that were currently in New York and he would have been accepted, but when insomnia got the best of him, he rarely wanted company. Instead, he preferred to wander Manhattan until he finally tired himself out, usually around 4am, before returning to the tower to get at least a couple of hours asleep for the night. Tony had voiced his concern once Jarvis had told him what he was up to.

_‘That’s a great way to get mugged, Stripes.’_

Leave it to Tony to forget about the whole ‘super soldier’ thing. Besides, even if he wasn’t freakishly strong, what would they mug? The flip phone that he barely even remembered to keep charged? It had been gifted to him by Tony after he’d refused the many iterations of StarkPhone that were far too overwhelming for him to use consistently. Tony, in his great wisdom had uncovered what he described as a ‘great relic of our time’ and handed him the 9-year-old piece of technology with a knowing smile. _‘Baby steps, old man, we’ll get you there.’_

Confident that he could handle himself on the seemingly mean streets of Midtown, he gave a brief greeting to Frank, one of the night guards that worked the tower lobby. With no real destination in mind, he wandered aimlessly, taking in the streets around the tower. He took these excursions frequently and had built up a mental map of his surroundings. He liked to take note of cafes that he might like to visit during the day, a record shop that he had found one of the first nights he was out that he now spent a considerable amount of time at, a second-hand bookstore that doubled as a bar at night, a modern-day speakeasy. He’d never visited the bookstore at night, but it looked interesting. Maybe one day.

Although the fact that he couldn’t actually get drunk really did put a spanner in the works that was that plan.

Venturing out further than what he had already previously explored, Steve took in the sights of a still-recovering New York. There were still closed businesses, side streets that were still blocked off for roadworks, and entire buildings that had been destroyed by the Chitauri. Thankfully, the damage was minimal compared to what it could have been, but progress was slower than the New Yorkers would have liked. Even three months on, the scars of the Battle of New York could be seen, not only in its surroundings, but in its people too. Tensions and grief had been high, as well as the general population coming to terms with the fact that aliens were real, and they had caused the destruction of their city.

If you had told Steve that this is how 2012 would play out, he wouldn’t have believed it either.

He made a right onto a quiet street, no one else around except for a woman walking on the other side of the road. As he walked closer to her, he could hear her swearing under her breath.

“Motherfucker!” She hissed, hand pressed up against her forehead. She walked closer underneath a streetlamp, which is when Steve noticed the blood streaming down her cheek. Feeling concern for the stranger, he crossed the street to approach her, looking both ways before he crossed, of course.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” Steve enquired, though the woman was looking down and didn’t seem to notice until he was three feet away from her, when her head finally snapped up and she took a step back in alarm.

“Fuck!” She took another step back more confidently this time and Steve stopped, not wanting to scare her any more than she already was. “Can you like, maybe not scare the absolute shit out of me? What the hell, man?” Shock had quickly given way to anger and Steve honestly didn’t know what to say. Fishing a clean handkerchief out of his inner jacket pocket, he held it out, but decided not to take a further step forward.

“I…I’m sorry about that. Uh, your head’s bleeding, are you okay?” The woman was silent for a moment as she considered taking the handkerchief, though her expression told Steve that she really didn’t want to. After a moment more, she relented, stepping forward to take it from him, mopping up the side of her face roughly before holding it to her forehead.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock, thanks for that.” She frowned, applying pressure to her forehead, and Steve could see the blood slowly seeping through. He bit his tongue at her rather rude response, instead, hazarding another slow step towards her. To her merit, she didn’t step back to broaden the gap again, and the two stood in silence for a moment before the woman sighed and spoke again.

“Sorry for snapping, I’ve just had a bad fucking day.” She apologised, gesturing to her still-bleeding forehead. Steve gave a small, sympathetic smile, though his brow was still furrowed in concern.

“Yeah, I kind of figured. What happened?” Steve didn’t think the girl would actually answer, but after a sigh, she turned her head towards him and shrugged.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Got mugged, pushed against a wall. Normal Wednesday, really.” Somehow it was more shocking than Steve thought it would be, even though he really didn’t know what he thought would have happened.

“I’m sorry, are you okay?” The woman snorted, but her body language relaxed somewhat.

“You asked that already.” She sighed, walking towards a parked car to crouch down next to the side mirror. She gingerly removed the handkerchief and studied her face in the mirror, clicking her tongue in frustration. “Motherfucker,” she swore again, and again Steve held his tongue. Like she said, the girl was having a bad day and Steve didn’t want to make it worse by correcting her language. He caught a glimpse of the rather sizable cut just above her and frowned. It was still bleeding, more sluggishly now, but the cut was deep frown what he could see, and almost an inch long.

“I think you should go to the hospital, that doesn’t look too good.” The woman flicked her eyes towards Steve for a moment, before turning her attention back to her reflection.

“I’ll be fine, head wounds just piss blood, but they look worse than they actually are.” The woman was lying of course, she knew that it definitely needed stiches, but she honestly couldn’t be bothered waiting hours in an emergency room for a doctor to take five minutes to stitch her up. Besides, she had steristrips at home, she’d be fine. Seeing how deep the cut went, Steve knew she was lying as well. He opened his mouth to protest but before he could, she stood suddenly, turned grey and promptly threw up in the gutter.

Despite how uncomfortable she had been in his presence, he stood forward to hold her dark curls back and the woman, bracing her arms on her thighs, did not protest. After one more heave and a shuddering intake of breath, she stood up straight once more, wiping her mouth with her hand.

“Okay, I know what you’re thinking, brain injury and all of that,” she held up a hand. “But really, I’ve just been drinking like, really heavily tonight so it’s probably just that.” Judging by her expression, she believed that just about as little as he did.

“Still, I think it would be a good idea to get checked out. Would you please let me get a cab and take you to the hospital?” The woman didn’t look enthused by his suggestion, but she sighed in defeat. She knew as well as he apparently did that the money she would have had for a cab was in her purse along with the rest of her stolen belongings.

“You think I’m just gonna get into a cab with a random stranger at 2am?” She asked, wrapping her free arm around her body with a shiver. Despite it only being August, it was an uncharacteristically cool night, and she had failed to bring a jacket with her. He held up a finger as he fished for his wallet from the same jacket pocket that he’d found the handkerchief. He retrieved the ID that Tony insisted he’d get from within it and handed it to her. She took it with a smirk and read aloud.

“Steven G Rogers, born the 4th of July 1984, from Brooklyn New York.” She flicked it to see the underside and back around before handing it back to him. The year was obviously a lie, but he had Tony make everything else the truth. _‘You sure, capsicle? don’t wanna shave a few more years off?’_ But Steve had insisted for some reason. He was already a man out of time, he didn’t want to be any less connected to the new world around him. Accepting the ID back he smiled and held out his hand.

“Hi, I’m Steve, nice to meet you.” She returned his smile and accepted his hand in a shake.

“Edie, same to you. Though, I’m sure it would better under different circumstances.” Steve found himself not disagreeing with the statement, on account of all the blood. She didn’t say anything to further reject his offer, so he shrugged of his jacket and draped it around her bare shoulders.

“Now that we’re not strangers, I’m gonna go get a cab. You stay here,” he gestured to the steps of an apartment building behind them, “and I’ll be back in a second.” Before she could protest, he was off at a brisk walk towards the main road, as the one they were currently on was more or less deserted. True to his word, a cab pulled up in front of her with Steve not far behind, approaching at a jog. He opened the cab door for her, because of course he did, and clutching the jacket around her shoulders with her free hand, Edie obliged. Rounding the cab from the other side, he slid into the cab next to her, the awkward silence between the two broken by the cab driver turning around to face the pair.

“Where you off to, folks?” He asked and Steve leaned forward to answer him.

“The closest hospital, please.” Edie made a face and held a hand up.

“Closest from here is what, Presbyterian?” The driver nodded and Edie shook her head. Judging by her following expression, she regretted the sudden movement. Despite this, she continued. “No way I’m waiting six hours to be seen, can you take us to Mount Sinai instead?”

“You’ve got it.” And with that, the cab was off. They spent the next few minutes in silence until the driver spoke again as they approached a closed road.

“I’m gonna have to take a couple of detours, folks. Aliens tore up these streets pretty bad.” Then with a chuckle to himself, he added incredulously, “Fucking aliens.”

Leaning her head against the cool window of the cab, Edie gave a thumbs up and Steve answered the cab driver for her. “That’s fine,” he answered, looking back at the woman who had been a stranger five minutes ago with concern.

“Fucking aliens,” She agreed with a laugh, looking over at Steve. “Were you around when it happened?”

“Yeah, I was uh, working at the time.” He decided that the vaguer the better, lest he divulge that he was actually the one running around in red, white and blue, throwing a metal frisbee at the so-called aliens. “You?” He quickly responded, trying to turn the conversation away from himself.

“Mmm,” Edie hummed in affirmation. “I was at they gym at the time, which honestly was the best idea, considering my entire building got demolished while I was out. You better believe I never skip gym days anymore.” Nothing like alien terrorists to motivate you into keeping fit, apparently.

“I’m sorry about that,” he responded with sympathy, but she shrugged.

“No need. Wasn’t your fault.” She gave him a small, sad smile and Steve was silent. In all honesty, it _might _have been his fault, depending on the building. He held a lot of regret over the fact that while the Avengers eventually stopped the Chitauri, if they’d done it earlier, there might have been less destruction, less death. He said nothing for a while, lost in his thoughts. Noticing his discomfort, Edie decided to cheer her saviour up.

“Besides, I had a hell of an adventure.” She faced him completely, turning her body so the back of her head was resting on the window. “There I was, alien destruction raining down on me and you know, I’m just running around, trying not to fucking die. They were on the ground, just wandering around with these weird arm cannon things, you know, like Mega Man?” She paused for a second, but Steve just shrugged. The reference went over his head and Edie left it and continued.

“Anyway, I round the corner with this group of civilians that I’ve somehow inherited, but you know, that happens in an active warzone I suppose. There was me and this cop that were running point, and we came across these downed aliens in the middle of the street, just lying there. Me and this cop just look at each other like, ‘are we gonna do something really dumb?’” Edie shifted in her seat, a strangely nostalgic look on her face as she looked past Steve and to the streets passing by behind him. Just before he could ask what she was thinking about, she resumed.

“So yeah, we did something really dumb, stole their arm cannons and kinda went ham down the street. There weren’t many of them down there at that point, mind you, so it’s not like we single-handedly drove the aliens away, we wouldn’t dare take the glory from Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, don’t worry.” She smiled and Steve found himself matching her expression, despite the fact that he was deeply uncomfortable once her story shifted to the Avengers. Edie decided not to ruin the light-heartedness of the story by mentioning that the cop later died defending one of the civilians, a waitress, she vaguely remembers. It was easier focusing on the positives.

“What happened with the guns?” Steve asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, funny you ask that, because I felt like it was the wrong thing to just leave it on the street once everything was said and done, like, anyone could come across it. So I kinda just shoved it in my gym bag and headed to my abuela’s house. Keeping it under my bed seemed like a good idea at the time but imagine my surprise two days later when these government suits turned up at the front door, giving me a stern talking to and confiscating the weapon. Which honestly, was probably the best outcome, all things considering. What the fuck was I gonna do with an alien arm cannon?” Steve couldn’t help but agree, though it was interesting hearing about the experiences of civilians on that day. Suddenly, something that Edie said came to mind.

“Wait, you said you were a group of civilians. Aren’t you a civilian too? Unless you’re some secret member of the Avengers that Tony Stark is hiding away.” Steve questioned with a comically raised eyebrow and Edie couldn’t help but laugh.

“God no, couldn’t handle the responsibility.” Edie denied and though he said nothing, Steve inwardly agreed. Sometimes he wished he was still that kid from Brooklyn, but he had too many people depending on him now to go back. “I mean, I guess I’m technically a civilian now, but I did two tours in Afghanistan a few years ago and without sounding like an absolute dickhead, I suppose that shit never leaves you, especially when New York becomes a warzone.” Steve bit his tongue before he was able to say that he was also involved in the military, because really, how was he supposed to explain that to someone involved in the modern military? _‘Oh yeah, me too. I fought in the Second World War and had an illustrious career punching Hitler in the face twice a day. What are the odds, huh?’_  
  


_\---_

The rest of the cab ride passes similarly with pleasant conversation, with Steve learning about her family and lying about his own. To his credit, they were more lies by omission than anything else, or things that he could easily adapt to modern times. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, though in the 80s rather than the 1920s, he was raised by a single mother (true) who died a while ago (also technically true) and now worked in construction (a flat out lie, but some things can’t be avoided.)

“You must be busy now with all the work that needs to be done on the city.” Edie mused, and Steve looked away.

“Yeah, something like that.”

The cab only had to stop twice so Edie could open the door and throw up onto the road, before they turned into the emergency room. Steve paid the driver with a generous tip and escorted the woman inside. The triage nurse at the front desk eyed the two of them, turned back to the computer and suddenly shot out of her seat when she realised who just walked in.

“Edie, what the fuck did you do this time?” The nurse questioned, leaning over the desk. Edie snorted as the two of them approached.

“Hey! It wasn’t my fault this time. I got mugged!” She whined half-heartedly as the nurse shook her head and gestured around the other side of the desk. Edie sat down in one of the triage chairs and the nurse removed the thoroughly ruined handkerchief from her brow. The cut had thankfully stopped bleeding by that point and Edie hissed as the nurse gently probed the edges with gloved hands before performing a brief neurological exam.

“Any neck pain?” She asked, typing information into her computer.

“None.” Edie answered and the nurse worked through the rest of the list.

“Headache?”

“Well yeah, I got pushed into a fucking wall, what do you think?”

“Any nausea and vomiting?”

“No.” Edie lied through her teeth and Steve raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” He corrected her, “Three times in twenty minutes.” He checked his watch to confirm his story. Edie shot daggers at her escort and the nurse sighed.

“Come on, Edie, really?” She shook her head in disbelief and finished documenting in the computer. She reached into her desk drawer for a sick bag and thrust it into Edie’s hands.

“Go wait in the chairs with your boyfriend and I’ll get them to call you in next.” The nurse gestured towards the rows of chairs in the waiting room. Steve and Edie both opened their mouths to protest the use of the word boyfriend but were ushered away before they could. The two sat in silence in the chairs, Steve busying himself with taking a sudden and very keen interest in the posters on the walls and Edie suddenly finding the sick bag in her hands incredibly interesting. Breaking the silence, Edie turned to Steve.

“First of all, fuck you. You couldn’t just leave the whole throwing up thing alone?” She looked more tired than angry so Steve didn’t take too much of it to heart.

“I would have felt really bad if you died of a head injury because you’re too stubborn to get yourself properly checked out. Besides, we’re here anyway, you might as well make sure you’re okay.” Edie gave a small laugh, too exhausted to argue. She gripped Steve’s chivalrously donated jacket tighter around her bare arms and settled in to lean against his shoulder. He might have been a complete stranger, but she was too drunk to care at this point. Steve stiffened at the initial contact but said nothing. If this is what it took to keep her in hospital, so be it. She was still and blessedly quiet for a while, before he felt eyes on him. He looked from Edie to an older couple sitting opposite them, both smiling at the scene before them.

“Oh that’s just beautiful,” The woman said with a smile. “How long have you two been together.”

“Oh, we’re not—” Steve was cut off by the girl using him as a human pillow, who cracked an eye open to look at the couple with a conspiratory smile.

“It’s been what, two years now, dear?” Looking up at Steve with a grin, he couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, almost two years.” He had no clue what he was doing, but he had to admit it was fun to pretend. He was not Captain America, the first Avenger, he was just Steve, a contractor from Brooklyn, escorting his girlfriend to the hospital.

“And how did the two of you meet?” Chimed in the man, Steve looking down at Edie. She shook her head.

“Oh babe, you tell this story so much better than I do.” She gave a smile, giving Steve the impression that she was intentionally going to make this hard for him.

“Well uh, it was at a bar, and uh, we saw—I mean, me and my friend saw this girl at the other end and um, he really liked her so I went up to her to try and uh, set them up,” he stammered, scratching the back of his head. Taking pity on him, Edie finished the story.

“The friend was cute, sure, but there was this guy who approached me out of the goodness of his heart, trying to make his friend happy and I thought, ‘this is the one I want to end up with. He’s nice.’” She looked up at him with a smile as the older couple beamed at the two.

“Oh, how sweet.” The woman gushed before lightly whacking her husband’s arm. “Why aren’t you that nice, Eddie?”

“I’m plenty nice!” He argued lightly. “I got you flowers the other week. Let me tell you, son, if you wanna keep your wife happy, flowers always do the trick.” He turned to Steve and gave him an exaggerated wink. Before he could say anything to deny that the two of them weren’t even married, a nurse called out from the next room.

“Eden Ortiz?” Edie sprang up and Steve followed. Both of them waving goodbye to the couple as they ventured into the emergency room proper. The nurse directed them to a bed and gave Edie a gown to change into. Closing the curtains, he wandered outside the cubicle to preserve her modesty. She pulled back the curtains when she was ready, and the first thing Steve noticed was that where her lower left leg should have been, a metal prosthesis was in its place. He must have been staring as Edie made an uncomfortable kind of hum that broke him out of staring. He didn’t say anything, because as a stranger, it wasn’t his place to know.

“Remember when I said that I did two tours in Afghanistan? Well, I loved it so much that I left a little piece of me there for the good people to remember me by.” She smiled but shifted uncomfortably as she got back onto the bed. Steve was silent for a moment as he thought of what to say, eventually settling on “I’m sorry that happened to you.” She waved off the comment and shrugged.

“Hey, you’re doing that thing where you’re apologising for something that isn’t your fault. Unless you’ve had a past career in homemade bomb making that you’ve failed to mention.” Steve had only known Edie for an hour at this point but could already recognise that she had a habit of deflecting with humour, something that reminded him very heavily of someone else he knew that had almost died in Afghanistan. However, he decided that he much preferred conversation with his new friend rather than Tony; far less joking at Steve’s expense, which was nice for a change.

\---

Against her immediate wishes, Edie was whisked away for a CT scan, leaving Steve to his own devices for the next half hour. It was at this time that sleep finally decided to come to him, though its timing was admittedly poor. He didn’t remember falling asleep in the uncomfortable plastic chair until Edie was wheeled back, startling Steve into a sudden standing position. The girl on the bed laughed, and Steve couldn’t help but match her expression, albeit sheepishly. He opened his mouth to apologise but Edie waved him off before he could even begin.

“Dude, I get it. It’s like, three am. You should go home, get a good night’s sleep.” She suggested with a smile. Steve however, shook his head.

“No, I’ll be fine. It’s not nearly my bedtime yet.” He joked, taking a seat back in the chair. Edie shrugged.

“Alright, but it’s your funeral. They’re giving me the royal treatment, but it’ll still take like, an hour for the results to be back.” Though she wouldn’t admit it, she was happy to have the company, even though the man sitting next to her was essentially a stranger.

“I was wondering about that,” Steve questioned. “Why are you getting the special treatment. I mean, I didn’t think it was _that _serious.” Oh god, maybe it was that serious. Maybe she actually was dying from her injuries. How would he get in contact with her family and let them know to come to the hospital? He didn’t even _know _who her family was. What was her last name, again? Ortega? Oliver? How do you say _“sorry to bother you at three in the morning and you don’t even know me and really, I don’t even know your daughter but she’s in the hospital and it’s really serious and you should come down” _to people you’ve never met?

“Don’t worry, it’s not,” Edie, noticing his alarmed expression, attempted to calm him down. “It’s Sarah’s doing, the nurse that saw us when we first came in. Nurses around here sometimes do ride-alongs with paramedics, and just so happened to ride with me and my partner for a while. We’ve been close ever since. Well, that and the fact that bringing patients in and showing your face around EDs enough, you start becoming familiar. They look after their own.” Edie smiled fondly and as if to prove her point, a different nurse walking past smiled and waved in her direction, which Edie returned. Steve raised an eyebrow.

“You’re a paramedic? Oh that makes sense. If I hadn’t come along and forced you to come to hospital, you would have just tried stitching it together in your bathroom, wouldn’t you?” Steve questioned, only half joking. Edie laughed.

“Guilty.” She raised both of her hands in surrender. “See, this is why I married you. You know me so well.” They both laughed at that.

“Oh, you married me? I could have sworn that I was the one that married you.” At this, Edie vehemently shook her head, and Steve could see that she was feeling better by the fact that she didn’t immediately turn grey at the sudden movement.

“Nope, I proposed to you, a year after we’d been seeing each other. I’m a modern, independent woman, after all. Oh, we also hyphenated our names, just so you know. You’re Steve Ortiz-Rogers.”

“Not Rogers-Ortiz?” Ortiz, that’s what her last name was. He made a mental note just in case he had to make a panicked call to her family, the fear that she would suddenly deteriorate still front and centre in his mind.

“Nah, doesn’t have the same ring to it.” Steve disagreed, but let her win this fake argument. They continued the conversation as easily as if they _had _known each other two years. It was nice having someone to talk to who didn’t know his history, who just knew him as Steve. It was almost like he belonged here, in this emergency room in 2012, just having a conversation with a girl who was in the process of getting her forehead stitched up. Okay, maybe it wasn’t _that _normal, but it was still nice.

“Owwww,” Edie whined as the doctor leaned over her with a needle and thread, methodically stitching the sizable wound. In all honesty, it looked much better now that it wasn’t bleeding and her face had finally been cleaned up. The only evidence that it had even been bleeding in the first place was a smattering of bloodstains down the front of her white top.

“Oh hush,” the doctor quipped, “You’re so topped up with local that you can’t feel your entire face.” It was a rude answer but judging by Edie’s expression, it was friendly banter between friends.

“Jesus Zach, you’re such a dick sometimes.” Edie returned and the doctor smirked.

“I’m the dick that’s patching up your dumb ass, so be thankful.”

“I think you’ll find that you’re stitching up my dumb face, actually.” The doctor shook his head, but continued nevertheless. Though at this moment she couldn’t look at him, Edie thrust a pointed finger in Steve’s direction. “You should be more like Steve, Steve’s not a dick.”

“You’re more than welcome to ask Steve to stitch your face back together.” Zach returned almost immediately. Edie thought about it for a moment, but eventually relented.

“Ugh fine. I guess I should trust the guy with the needle scarily close to my face. But just for the record, you have atrocious bedside manner.”

It wasn’t too much longer before Zach finally finished his masterpiece, declared that Edie had a nasty concussion but no skull fractures, and sent them both on their way. Standing outside the emergency room, Edie sighed, turning her freshly fixed face towards him.

“Now, I’m gonna thank you for making sure that I was okay and say goodbye, tell you that I’ll catch a cab to my Abuela’s place and I’ll be fine, I’ll thank you again and give you back your jacket. You’re not gonna let me do that, are you? You’re so goddamn chivalrous that you’re gonna insist on escorting me back home because it’s the ‘right thing to do’. How far off am I?” Edie gave a rather accurate account of what would actually happen tonight, and Steve could only shrug.

“Not too far, to be perfectly honest.” He admitted. Edie sighed.

“I don’t know what I expected from a man who keeps a handkerchief in his pocket. Who even carries a handkerchief anymore? Are you secretly my abuelo come back from the grave?”

Honestly, that wasn’t too far off either. _‘I’m actually 94 years old but I was frozen in ice and uncovered last year so really the only world experience I have is from the 1940s where this was commonplace. Oh no, why are you running away? Please stop running.’ _Yeah, a grand display of honesty was decidedly not on the cards for tonight.

“I suppose I’m just an old-fashioned guy,” He offered instead, something that Edie shook her head to in response, but didn’t argue further.

“Alright, but it’s your funeral. A cab ride to Harlem isn’t exactly gonna be cheap.” Well, he wasn’t expecting Harlem, but he wasn’t complaining.

“That’s fine.” He answered, before stepping out onto the street to hail a cab, opening the door for her once again, because of course he did. She gave the driver her grandmother’s address and the rest of the ride was decidedly uneventful. Edie didn’t even throw up once.

They finally arrived at the Harlem brownstone and Edie shed her borrowed jacket, handing it back to the stranger that was now apparently her husband.

“Thanks for this, and thanks for everything. I really appreciate it.” She went to open the cab door, before pausing and turning back to Steve. “Hey, can I grab your number? I’d really like to take my saviour out for coffee sometime. If you’re okay with that, though.” Steve smiled and although he was surprised that she’d ever want to see him again. He reached for his flip phone in his back pocket and Edie snorted.

“Flip phone, really? Gad, you really are old-fashioned, aren’t you?” Steve laughed as he searched for his own contact in the phone, before handing it to her.

“Guilty.” He admitted, and Edie retrieved a pen that she’d stolen from triage, writing his number on her inner arm. She too great pleasure in flipping the phone closed and handing it back to him.

“Are you gonna be okay?” He asked seriously and Edie gave a comforting smile.

“I’ll be fine. Abuela rises with the sun, so she’ll be up soon to fuss over me. Don’t worry.”

She gave a brilliant, toothy smile, and it was the last thing she said to him before she exited the cab, standing at the stoop and waving him goodbye as the cab took off once more. Steve watched as she disappeared into the distance. Other 2am excursions had garnered him a new café, a record store and a bookstore, but this is the first outing that had garnered him a fake wife.

It was nice, Steve finally decided as he settled his head on the window of the cab, watching the city pass him as his eyes finally, blessedly closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sheer amount of times that Steve nearly told Edie to "watch her language" is staggering. Just a one shot for now, but I have plans for something a bit bigger in the future. Hope you enjoyed!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two literal idiots do not know how to talk to each other
> 
> or
> 
> Steve is forced to ask for help when it comes to the many mysteries of modern technology

It has been four days since Steve had met Edie and the girl had been present in the back of his mind ever since. Steve didn’t think when she requested his number it would amount to anything, just a polite gesture that she would eventually forget about when it washed off her arm in the shower and while disappointed, he understood. After all, he was just a stranger that she’d been forced to spend time with one night, nothing else. But suddenly, three days after their emergency room adventure, an unknown contact made his flip phone buzz from across the room as he was weight training in the Tower’s gym, Steve was thankful that the gym was empty save for himself, as he didn’t want to get the third degree from the others, especially Tony.

The phone wasn’t ringing but instead, a message blinked up on the screen.

‘Hey! This is Edie, your pretend wife from the other night. I told my family what happened, and I think my Abuela is a little bit in love with you tbh. Anyway, how’s your day been?’

He smiled at her message but then suddenly frowned. How on earth was he supposed to respond to that. Of course, he very much wanted to reply, but the flip phone keypad had different ideas. Taking a seat on the weights bench, his focus entirely on how to get the keys to properly express his message, Steve went to work. It took him an embarrassing amount of time to construct the message, proper punctuation and everything thank you very much, another reason he was glad that he was alone. Finally after a solid fifteen minutes, his masterpiece was complete.

‘Good, yours?’

Hitting send with a triumphant index finger, he grinned with satisfaction.

His grin turned to a frown when she responded almost immediately with another novel to reply to.

\---

Edie Ortiz was strong.

Edie Ortiz was independent.

Edie Ortiz had never pined after a man in her life. She was a retired army corporal for fuck’s sake. So why the hell was this one guy, someone who had all but forced her into a taxi, mind you, so heavily on her mind? Her phone had been stolen along with the rest of her purse, so she was in need of getting a new one anyway, but she would be lying if she said that the prospect of keeping in touch with Steve had certainly motivated her to get a replacement as soon as possible.

Her plans of sneaking back into the house at four in the morning after Steve had escorted her were thwarted as she realised that her house keys had also been in the purse.

Fuck.

Reluctantly, she knocked on the front door and was presented with the increasingly concerned face of her grandmother, who had damn near woken up the whole house with her cries of _‘Mija, what happened to you?’_ Then it was a question of not only calming down her grandmother, but her aunt, uncle and two cousins, something that she was hoping to avoid. The family had finally settled back to bed at around five in the morning, Abuela not taking no for an answer as she escorted Edie upstairs to her temporary bedroom, refusing to leave once her granddaughter was tucked uncomfortably tight under the covers. She watched Edie like a hawk as she slept, waking her up every hour or so to make sure she didn’t die in her sleep. While Edie loved her grandmother, her brand of love could be rather suffocating at times.

If the bedsheets were anything to go by, suffocation was more than an abstract concept.

Teresa Ortiz was scared for her granddaughter. She had been scared for her during both her tours to Afghanistan, scared for her when they had brought her back half dead and missing a limb, been scared for her when she had narrowly avoided being crushed under the weight of her apartment building when aliens poured from the sky and she was scared for her even now. In all honesty, Eden Ortiz had shaved an extra ten years off her grandmother’s life with just pure worry, which was concerning when she was already eighty-three years old.

With all that considered, she would be much happier if she could keep her granddaughter close and indoors at all times, something that Edie had politely declined.

Edie left the house later that afternoon, armed with her credit card and her incredibly responsible twelve-year-old cousin Sofia (which in all honesty, was probably the only reason her grandmother let her out of the house in the first place), she made her way back to midtown to buy a new phone.

“Ooh, you should get the new iPhone, no wait, get the StarkPhone, they’re way better!” Sofia was practically buzzing with excitement sitting next to Edie on the subway. Edie raised an eyebrow.

“You’re only here because you’re gonna steal it when I’m not looking so you can play games.”

“Duh, I’m twelve. I don’t have money.” Sofia rolled her eyes as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Ugh, get a job, you slacker.”

“I can’t! It’s illegal!”

With Sofia’s less-than-subtle hinting, they two eventually settled on the StarkPhone, and although parting with the substantial amount of money was more than a little painful for her, she had to admit that it was better than anything else on the market that she could get her hands on. The security features were definitely a plus, considering the fate of her last phone.

On the subway back home, Sofia generously sacrificed her time to set the phone up for her cousin, though judging by how excited the girl was, it was a very, _very, _minor sacrifice. She had reluctantly handed the StarkPhone back to her cousin when they were back home. Edie was not proud to admit that the first thing she did after climbing the stairs back to her room was enter Steve’s number into her contacts.

Was it too forward of her to text now? Should she wait a couple of days? A week? If she asked Sofia, the younger girl probably know phone etiquette far better than her perpetually single older cousin, but then she’d have to tell her all about Steve and honestly, her cousin could not keep a secret to save her life.

‘Hey! Got a new phone and was thinking about you—’

Ugh, god no, that just made her sound like a stalker. She backspaced the message.

‘Hey, it’s Edie, the girl from last night, unless there were more girls that you met in which case it’s me, the girl with one leg—’

Nope, try again.

“Hey, you were really nice and super hot and I really want to take you out and see you again and look at your dumb gorgeous face—’

She deleted the message once again and almost threw her brand new phone well across the room. She fell face first onto her pillow and let it muffle her groan as she really thought about how pathetic she was. The guy didn’t even offer his number, she had requested it. He was probably only being polite anyway. A chivalrous, well-put together guy like that was probably already married with 2.5 kids and a cute Upper East Side brownstone with a dog. Yeah, he _definitely _had a dog.

God, she was absolutely pathetic.

Retrieving her phone from the end of her bed, she typed an innocent question into Google.

‘How long should I wait before texting a guy?’

Google told her three days, so three days is how long she eventually waited.

She went on with her life, going back to work after two days, suffering through her partner’s bad dad jokes, administered Narcan on more than a few ungrateful unresponsive heroin addicts, missed out on delivering a baby by fifteen minutes but was at least able to transport mom and baby to the hospital. She noticed with a kind of nostalgia that should not be possible after two days, that they had delivered the two to the same emergency room that Steve had escorted her to only nights before.

“You okay?” Her partner asked with a raised eyebrow as the two got back into the rig. “You look like you ate dairy again and you’re trying to pretend that everything’s okay.” Trust Sam to bring up her inability to come to terms with her own lactose intolerance.

“I’m fine,” Edie answered a little too quickly. “Just made me remember that I need my stiches out in a couple of days. You wanna do the honours?” She quickly changed the subject and Sam smiled.

“I’d be honoured to get dangerously close to your face with a stitch cutter.”

“Aw, you say the nicest things.”

\---

It was three days after they had met that Edie finally mustered the courage to message Steve.

_‘Hey! This is Edie, your pretend wife from the other night. I told my family what happened, and I think my Abuela is a little bit in love with you tbh. Anyway, how’s your day been?’ _Was what she finally settled on. And it was true. She had eventually told the whole story over dinner one night and Teresa Ortiz had all but swooned at the kitchen table.

“Oh Edie, he sounds so chivalrous! What a nice boy, you should see him again! You’ve been single too long, mija, you don’t want everything down there to close up.”

“Oh my god, Abuela! Can we not talk about my sex life at dinner?” Edie had flashed bright red with embarrassment and the rest of the family laughed, seemingly taking great pleasure in her discomfort. Abuela simply gave a knowing smile and patted her granddaughter’s knee under the table.

“That’s okay, we can talk about it over dessert.”

Edie had declined her serve of tembleque and instead retired to her room, took off her leg to charge it next to her bedside table and sent Steve a quick text before she lost her nerve. A minute passed, two minutes and then almost twenty minutes when Edie resigned herself to her fate and decided she would just die of embarrassment, right here in her bed. It would be a nice funeral, at least. The rest of her family would fly in from California and sure, everyone would be sad, but at least Edie wouldn’t be around to live through her embarrassment.

The phone chimed.

Edie almost jumped a full foot in the air, as she honestly wasn’t expecting him to reply.

_‘Good, you?’_

Oh.

A two-word response to a three-line text was never a good sign, and Edie felt what little hope she had in this situation seep through her pores, past the bed and down into the floorboards, never to be seen again. Nevertheless, she persisted.

‘Oh, you know, the usual. Ran a psych call the other day and the pager just said “Patient naked, throwing feces, approach with caution.” Surprisingly did not get poop on me, which was nice.’

Another ten minutes later, her phone buzzed again.

_‘Haha.’_

Okay, she was done. Steve obviously was not interested in her whatsoever, just a polite man who had politely made sure a stranger was okay, and that was the end of that. Dejected and resigned to her fate as old spinster crazy cat lady (she made a quick mental note to buy some cats), Edie turned her phone on silent and went to sleep.

\---

While Steve persisted, it was more effort than he was willing to admit. Keeping up with Edie’s lengthy messages was exhausting and honestly, he thought the whole thing would have gone a lot smoother if he’d just called her instead. _’That’s just not something the kids these days do,’ _Tony had told him one day, suspicious of Steve’s question when he brought it up over dinner one night. He had attempted to call her a few days after the two had started talking post-mugging, but she had declined his call, simply messaging back _‘sorry, working.’ _It was a far cry from her other extensive messages, and she seemed to be more distant than when they’d first began talking. Huh, maybe she was just being polite in asking for his number after all.

He bit the bullet about a week later, approaching Tony in his lab one afternoon.

“Capsicle! What can I do for ya?” Tony greeted, but didn’t look up from his work, whatever it was. Steve tended not to ask questions when it came to the self-described “genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist.

“Uh yeah, hi.” Steve returned, not exactly sure how he should word the request while also keeping Edie out of it. “I was wondering if I could take you up on your offer for a StarkPhone?” That certainly got Tony’s attention, as he put down what looked to be a soldering iron and flipped his safety goggles on top of his head. A “yeah, sure” with no follow up was out of the question, then.

“Uh huh, and what happened to not even needing a phone in the first place?” He questioned with an uncomfortably knowing expression on his face.

“I just thought I should start learning more about modern technology, that’s all,” was Steve’s rather weak pre-prepared response. Tony did not look impressed by his answer as a smile creeped across his face.

“Sure, so it has nothing to do with the girl you’ve been seeing? Eden, was it?” Whatever Steve was expecting, it certainly wasn’t that. He nearly choked on his tongue trying to rationalise.

“How did you—I mean, no!” He wouldn’t last a week as a spy, honestly.

“Do yourself a favour, Stripes, do not get into Nat’s line of work. You wouldn’t last a week.” Huh. At least that was one thing they two could apparently agree on. At Steve’s shocked silence, Tony continued. “Just a reminder, I make it my business to know everything. She’s clean, by the way. A nice, respectable girl to take back home to your mom, well, at least if your mom hadn’t died like, a hundred years ago.”

“I’m sorry, did you do a background check on her?” Ignoring the comment on his mother, Steve was equal parts confused and angry on Edie’s behalf. Tony gave an expression as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“You’re not just a kid from Brooklyn anymore, old man. You’re a part of a team that goes above the government. Anyone you’re associated with could be a security risk, and we can’t risk that. Not after what just happened.” Uncharacteristically serious, Steve had to concede to his point. He didn’t have to be happy about it, however.

“We’re not dating,” he weakly argued after a too-long pause. What _were_ they doing? She was just a girl who he’d had a nice conversation with and now they were just exchanging text messages? Weakly on his part, Steve had to admit.

“Whatever you say, old man. Look, do you want the phone or not?” Steve sighed but he knew that this was his best bet to have even a halfway decent conversation with Edie. He nodded. The smile that Tony gave in response was more conspiratorial than genuinely comforting, but Steve resisted the urge to point attention to it. The billionaire clapped his hands together and stood abruptly, walking straight past Steve to the door. Pausing and turning on his heel, he raised an eyebrow.

“You coming?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Steve followed Tony to his office and waited for him to rummage through his desk drawers. Without looking up, Tony talked through his options.

“Of course we’ve got the commercial StarkPhone for the trembling masses, but me and Jarvis have cooked up something pretty special. I’ve got a few models here, the Mark Three is something of a favourite of mine, but it did have that issue where it just, refused to turn off for like, three days straight. Great battery though.” He flung said Mark III on the table as he kept rummaging.

“The Mark Four has the folding liquid screen, which serves absolutely no functional purpose, but hey, at least it looks cool. So, what are you looking for.” Tony looked up to come face to face with the incredibly blank-faced 90-year-old man. He sighed.

“You have absolutely no idea what you’re looking for, do you?” Steve shrugged.

“I guess not.” Looking both sympathetic and incredibly disappointed, Tony put both the phones back from where they had come from and turned to the shelves at the back of the room.

“Commercial it is. Mark my words, Cap, we’ll have you a tech-wiz in no time.” Judging by his expression, Tony believed that just about as much as Steve did, which wasn’t saying very much at all. He placed a black box with a sleek design on the desk that separated the two men and Steve stared at it like it was either some great archaeological find or some horrific alien technology (Tony couldn’t decide) making no motion to pick it up. Tony sighed, something that seemed to be commonplace whenever he was in the room with Captain America.

“Go on, it won’t bite. I hope this great gift will facilitate many racy and downright provocative conversations between you and your lady friend. You’re welcome.” Steve shone a brilliant red and Tony snorted at his discomfort and the abject horror that was quickly spreading across his features. Giving the man a pass, he waved his hand in dismissal.

“Now, run along and have a life for once. If you need any help, just ask Jarvis. He’ll set himself up on the phone at start-up.” Steve snatched the phone, wanting nothing more than to leave the room or spontaneously die on the spot, he couldn’t decide.

“Um, yes. I mean, no! I mean, um, thanks for this.” He held the box up, not wanting to look Tony in the eye, which only served to please the younger man further. God, he couldn’t wait to tell Pepper about this whole exchange with heavy creative editing.

\---

It took an hour with Jarvis’ help to be able to set up his new phone and migrate across the very few contacts he had. Armed with newfound technology, he opened up his messages and was able to send Edie a proper response for once. Typing with a single index finger, he composed and subsequently backspaced the message several times. Eventually he settled on:

“Hey, this is Steve. Sorry that it’s taken me so long to respond, it was really hard to type on my phone’s keyboard. I got a new phone though, so it should be easier now.”

On hitting send, three dots almost immediately appeared underneath his message.

_“Oh my god, I completely forgot that you had a flip phone! I thought that you were just being really short with me for some reason, haha.”_

Steve smiled at her response and was quietly pleased with himself that he could write something in less than twenty minutes.

“No, not at all. I was having a really hard time with technology. I’m still having a hard time with technology, to be perfectly honest. I was thinking of maybe taking you up on that offer to go out for coffee some time?” Feeling uncharacteristically bold, he hit send. A tiny voice from his phone suddenly piped up.

“If you’re looking for coffee, might I suggest Little Collins on Lexington Avenue? It is an Australian-themed café with consistently high reviews and is located a fourteen-minute walk from the Tower.” As Jarvis spoke directly from his phone, the screen shifted from his conversation to what appeared to be the café’s website. More than a little concerned about just what Jarvis was watching and listening to, he scrolled through photos of the café.

“Yeah uh, sound great, Jarvis.”

_“I’d really like that _ _😊 I have tomorrow off if that works for you?”_

He smiled at Edie’s response and replied in the affirmative.

“Tomorrow sounds good. I’m looking forward to it.” And for once in his life in modern New York, Steve was actually looking forward to something.

Tomorrow would be a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve in battle: stronk  
Steve in modern-day society: hjælp


End file.
